


Crescendo

by Whreflections



Series: Hanniholidays Prompts 2017 [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: HanniHolidays Prompt Calendar, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal Meets Will's Dad, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M, Thanksgiving, Will Graham Has Encephalitis, but - Freeform, tree decorating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 13:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12936237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: For HanniHolidays Prompt Calendar Day 2- OrnamentsSeason 1 AU.  A Hannibal who started dating Will not long after they started their conversations goes home with Will for Thanksgiving and finds himself reconsidering his (*cough* terrible) decisions, and realizing that he does, in fact, remember what it was like to have a family.  He never expected it was something he might want again, but then, he never expected Will, either.





	Crescendo

**Author's Note:**

> ...so no one get too excited cause I don't want to disappoint you, but working on these is a lot of fun and...this Christmas is going to be kinda sad in a few ways so this is something nice to focus on. Also, I think it's helping me work back towards keeping a good writing schedule. 
> 
> So, the tl;dr of that is yes, I'm going to try to do something short for every calendar day, but most of them will be late and I make no promises lol 
> 
> I am more grateful than I can say for everyone's kind words, and it makes me immensely happy that y'all are enjoying the things I write. Hugs all around <3

Later, Hannibal will look back on this moment and see the full truth of the milestone it is.  He will incorporate it into his memory palace, a nook tucked away close enough to the center but far enough to cushion him against the screams that lie in wait for him there.  It will keep the strange, aging warmth that it holds, like a polaroid expanded.  He will be able to breathe deep, there, and smell as he does now the scents of pipe smoke and dog  and old books, the musty smell wafting from decorations just unpacked, the false and overpowering cinnamon of cinnamon brooms newly purchased at the Dollar Tree. 

He will hold this place undimmed to give himself the luxury of memory, a reminder of choices he made, and choices the long dormant stirrings of his heart made for him.  (And there, there is the real milestone—the scratch of nails, after long silence.  The tap of Morse cord.  _I am in you, still, and I am alive.  You did not put me in the ground, or in your belly, or in the belly of wolves.  You closed me up with the boards of silence, and bid me sleep_. 

The road that had brought him here had begun in spirit not in Will's driveway, but in the depths of the woods, the two of them gone still beneath the dying trees, Will's pack ranging around them.

Hannibal had just begun tentative plans for a Thanksgiving feast, and he'd asked for Will's presence, the honeyed coating of his hope so thick on his tongue he knew Will had to have felt it.  He had been unable to lament the lapse, not if it helped him, but Will was all too quickly giving that small smile he reserved for regrets, his head shaking.

_No, sorry; I don't see dad much these days.  I can't miss Thanksgiving._

Hannibal had given himself no time to feel his disappointment.

_Of course.  It will be good for you, I suspect, to go home.  When the world pulls at us too strongly, we hold tighter to those we love.  If they cannot anchor us, they can at least keep our heads above water._

He could remember the feeling, distantly.  A snapshot of the cabin in the woods, he and his tutor by the fire, Mischa's laughter near the stairs.  His concession was, really, in that admission alone, but he had pressed forward, the words out of him sooner than he’d expected. 

_If you’d like, I could go with you._

Will’s protests stacked, like nesting dolls. 

_You don’t want that.  Seriously, it’s…his house is tiny and the vegetables’ll be canned._

_He wants to meet Winston, so he’s going._

_That means I’m not flying; airlines don’t have to report pet deaths most of the time.  It’s nearly an 18 hour drive._

_I’m going again at Christmas._

When no stumbling block had succeeded in tripping him, Will had sighed, a sound that in theory should have seemed put-upon, but Hannibal had heard the relief. 

_You must really like me._

More than he was ready to say, more than he could fully feel.  The truth of it spread within him like a well, reaching down and down; he was only the man at the crank, lowering the bucket, listening for the sound of the water he could smell in the depths. 

He is still lowering, in a living room with a Christmas tree Will has helped put together every year since he was 6, with Will’s father who squints when he lights his pipe but won’t put on his glasses unless Will’s looking at him. 

Will is bent over a cardboard box that says _Service Merchandise_ , shuffling through boxes of glass balls and smaller Hallmark ornaments.  Most of them are in the original packaging, but some are makeshift, meticulously labeled.  In his hands, Hannibal holds a box that might once have held a coffee mug, shaky marker script on the side now labelling it _Annabelle’s pawprint 1989._  

Hannibal traces his thumb across the letters, far more interested for the moment in the nuances of 8 year old Will than he is the as-yet unknown Annabelle.  Undoubtedly, she’s one of the number of dogs buried on the property.  Will has yet to take him to the graves, but he will, Hannibal knows, particularly if he asks.  He should ask. 

“It’s not in here, dad,”  Will says, with a warning Hannibal wouldn’t hear if he hadn’t spent so much time lately as his shadow.  “Maybe when we put everything away, it got left out or—“

“No.”  Roland Graham’s hand waves a pattern in the air that’s likely meant to be aimless, and is almost a figure 8.  “It’s your mother’s cello; we wouldn’t forget it.  Check back in the attic, behind the icicle lights.  We’ll need those down anyway; you and Hannibal can put them up for me before you go so you don’t have to worry about me climbing the ladder.” 

It’s visible, tangible how the twinkle in his eyes softens Will around the edges, like muting sound.  There is frustration still unspoken in his eyes, but he balances it, and dusts off his hands.  “We aren’t leaving yet.”

They aren’t, not tomorrow or likely even the next day, but Will heaves a sigh not at all like the one he gave Hannibal in the woods and turns to head back to the attic.  Hannibal could follow, and wonders if he should, but he knows he will have the chance to hear Will’s side of this puzzle piece later, in bed in the quiet of the night.  He far prefers 2 AM honesty to conversation amidst the clutter of boxes and flutter of dusty moths, so he stays, and turns to Roland instead. 

“Was the cello her favorite ornament, or her favorite instrument?” 

Roland shifts to face him, appraising.  "Both.  What's Will told you about her?"    
  
"Almost nothing; I'm afraid I know only of her absence."    
  
"Then you know about as much as he does."  There's wry laughter under his words, hung on a lattice of pain.  It is in the clench and release of his hands, in the change in his very scent.  "You drove through New Iberia coming in; your probably saw our little theater."    
  
"I did."  The facade was crumbling brick, mismatched letters above the ticket office advertising the dates when _A Christmas Carol_ would begin.  It was charming, in the way of childish dereliction.    
  
"There's a wealth of local pride in that place, and just about everyone in the county's played in one of the bands or knows someone who made it into a show, but it's a barely professional operation at best compared to what you see in bigger cities.  I'm from here; I'm alright with that.  She thought she could be, too, but it got old, and she left.  Will was at daycare; I got a call down at the garage telling me I needed to come pick him up."    
  
Hannibal could imagine it—hurried hands to pack her bags, a heavy foot on the gas, eager to drive faster than the potential for final conversations could catch up with her.  Leaving Will, and a man who loved her, chasing music that played behind her eyes.    
  
A year ago, he would have identified more with her decision, with the pursuit of art, and it wasn't beyond his reach now to understand, and yet...  
  
And yet.  There was, too, the matter of Will, young and lost, waiting for a mother who had weighed his worth and found it wanting.  Hannibal's lip twitched, involuntary, though he schooled himself before it curled.    
  
"Have you heard from her since?"   
  
Roland shakes his head, his hands patting at his pockets in a familiar rhythm to find where he's stuck his pipe and his tobacco.  "Not a word, but I've always wondered if one day she might turn up.  I'd like the chance to tell her I know why she did it, and I can forgive that much, but what she did to my boy...I can't forget it."  

"Forgiveness and memory can sometimes find a balance." 

"Sometimes, but I doubt she's coming."  Roland began to pack his pipe, gesturing with one hand—emotional with his body, while his son bled his heart from his eyes.  "And I doubt she's sorry.  Still, I don't want to forget her.  I don't think Will's ever really understood that." 

Somehow, Hannibal doubted that very much.  "Or, he understands and disapproves.  Will carries multitudes within himself.  They're often in conflict; he's learned to live with inherent contradictions.  He needs now only to learn to do it better." 

Roland's teeth are bared around the stem of his pipe, contorting his smile, muffling his words.  "He did say you started as his psychiatrist."

"We were only ever having conversations.  I'd rather be known as his partner." 

Roland nods, a concession that looks like approval.  He loves his son, dearly, but the landscape of Will's mind is a place he treads softly.  In his lack of understanding for it, he seems to prefer to pretend the landscape isn't alien, that Will feels just as he would, as average as any other mind compressed below the weights and strain of life as it's lived. 

There would be an easy silence if Hannibal stops there, filled with smoke and the breath of dogs, the eventual rattle of Will's footsteps on the stairs.  He can sense the ephemeral nature of that future shaping, feel its collapse when he presses.  "I have been concerned, about Will.  There is a great deal of benefit to be found in therapy and I think he needs it, but there's more to it, now.   I—“ The tingle of uncertainty coats the inside of Hannibal's mouth, fascinating in its unfamiliarity.  He is as unaccustomed to being surprised by the words out of his own mouth as Will would be to the prospect of a world where his mind was solely under his own control.  "I had him make an appointment with a neurologist friend of mine recently but I find myself doubting the diagnosis.  I'm going to encourage him to seek a second opinion."  Second, third.  The details are irrelevant.  When he made his original plans, he had never anticipated his growing distaste for the end, an increased certainty that he no longer wanted to see Will burn. 

Roland's forehead furrows with concern, his draw deep on his pipe.  "He leaves out anything he thinks I'll worry about; I didn't hear about that.  Do you think—well, he seems alright other than—“

"I think he'll be just fine, but he needs medicine, and I don't think the problem is in his mind."  The staircase creaks, and Hannibal moves in, sinking down to perch on the edge of a sagging couch cushion, so close to Will's father their knees almost touch.  "I'll make sure he calls you." 

Hannibal's smile is charming—this part, he knows how to do—but the unfamiliarity is still in his mouth, buzzing and buzzing. 

When Will reaches the doorway his hair is messy, his glasses slipping, but he smiles at Hannibal, and Hannibal feels his own widen in response, wholly instinctually, the deep roots of all that grows between them ever spreading. 

\-----

The grandfather clock in the hall chimes twice, and Hannibal stands barefoot in the glow of the Christmas tree, his breath slow and even, almost silent.  His stillness gives for a moment the pleasant feeling of time and the house moving around him, changing and shifting, refocusing around the focal point of the revelations he's made in this place. 

The cello is painted with cherry wood stain, strung with fine, fishing line strings.  The bridge bears a carved heart.  There are little bluebells painted onto the sides, chipping with age.  It is warm and old, like this place, providing it the illusion of belonging. 

The wood splinters as Hannibal squeezes against it, but he had the forethought to lay his handkerchief across his hand, first, and his palm is saved the sting.  The little neck dangles, severed, and Hannibal blinks at the shadows it makes against the hills and valleys of the brown shag carpet beneath his feet. 

Winston is new, and beloved; if too few tatters remain for the absence of tooth marks to be noticed, he will be blamed, and forgiven, and Will need never lay eyes again on the reminder of a woman who never wanted him enough to stay.

Hannibal's own wanting beats staccato in his breast, hard and fast and wild.  This new road he's found himself on is a vast unknown, but he is beginning, slowly, to remember to find worth in surprise. 


End file.
